Assignment: write an explication de texte of the poem you paraphrased. No word requirement, but the explication should represent well the poem.

An explication is an analytical description of a literary text based on specific observations of the text itself. Through observations of specific elements of the text, the explication shows us not only what a text means but how it means. A good poetry explication considers, for example:

• Literal Content (this is the brief "paraphrase" of the poem that tells us the "action" or "narrative" of the poem, its literal level),
• Diction (the word-choice or language of the poem and the suggestions that this diction contributes toward the tone and meaning of the poem),
• Figures & Tropes (the "poetic language" of metaphor, simile, image, symbol and the contribution that the use of these figures & tropes make to the tone and meaning of the poem),
• Rhetorical Features (patterns of language, of syntax, of phrasing),
• Poetic Structure and prosody (the poetic structure includes verse form [free verse, syllabic verse, etc.] stanzaic arrangement, line arrangement, rhyme, meter, use of particular genres [the sonnet, the villanelle],
• Characterization (if there are characters),
• Tone (angry, romantic?),
• Motifs/Themes/Thesis (the motif is a pattern that contributes to theme; themes are the concerns of the poem, usually expressed as declarative sentence, a thesis is the argument of the poem, the point of the poem, usually expressed as an argument).

All of these elements are analyzed if relevant (the more the better) in order to understand the poem in its full complexity. The explication should explore the poem by letting the features of the poem speak to the reader. Don't be reductive by eliminating features that are contradictory or problematic-these are often the most interesting and productive features. On the other hand, you must support each assertion with brief citations of the poem itself. The degree to which you account for all the features of a poem and the degree to which you can arrange your observations in a way that convincingly presents us with how and what the poem means, these are the measures of success for the explication. The explication is organized as an essay on what and how the poem means; that is, you organize the explication around your thesis or argument about the poem's meaning.